


The Nearness of You

by a_steady_wish



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s07e07 Orison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 03:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10958814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_steady_wish/pseuds/a_steady_wish
Summary: Her first night back in her own bed after the events of Orison, and Mulder is there to comfort and love her.





	The Nearness of You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt about Scully not being able to sleep and Mulder being happy to give her comfort in the night.

The night folded around them with a sweetness and poignancy heightened by the new pale stars that prickled silver fire in the water of the lily ponds, by the scented winds, and by the nearness of each other.

― Pauline Gedge, Child of the Morning

In that still, sacred time in the hour before dawn, a bus whooshes its hot air just outside of Scully’s building, and the real world seeps into her consciousness. It must be about four, she thinks, and rolls onto her side, finding Mulder’s hot, solid abdomen there for her to spread her fingers across. He hums in his sleep, eyes fluttering under closed lids. One of his warm hands flops over her own.

He loves her; she knows this now, knows it truly and fully and with everything she has. The way she has believed, her whole adult life, in the purity of science, and that all questions have answers – with this same strength and determination she can now believe in this too: her partner is in love with her.

This new awareness makes her smile, sleepily, and stay awake to watch him sleep. This is her first night back in her apartment since Donnie Pfaster turned it into the scene of a waking nightmare, and she’s glad Mulder stayed. She hadn’t asked him to; in fact, she had been outright belligerent with him after dinner yesterday, insisting that she was perfectly fine and could take care of herself. Now, with the soft moonlight casting delicate misty shadows across his form in her bed, she is so glad he stayed anyway.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Scully,” he had whispered to her last night, his arms around her, stroking her back. “I’m here because I want to be here. I love you, even when you’re arguing with me senselessly.” He had chuckled, but it was so full of care that something wrenched in her chest; finally she had relaxed into his arms. She cried, then, for the first time since evil had walked into her apartment and laid its claim on her one safe place – long, wretched, painful sobs – and Mulder continued to hold her, shushing gently into her hairline, sometimes rocking back and forth. Her tears were cleansing, liberating; after her good cry, Scully felt refreshed and blinked at Mulder with wet, swollen eyes, taking him in. He brought her a glass of water and wandered to bed, settling in with his book and giving her time and space to do her own thing, with no expectations or judgment. Eventually Scully had climbed into her own side, made fresh with new bedding, and fallen asleep against Mulder, curled up facing away from him, warming her cold feet against his leg.

In the apartment above hers, footsteps move about softly; water runs through the pipes. Mulder makes a brief snoring noise in the base of his throat and then turns his head a little, opening up his airway. She squeezes his belly a little more tightly, hoping he’ll wake up – hoping he’ll continue helping her to unlock facets of her often closed-off person, hoping he’ll help her to explore all the unknown parts of her being.

Mulder shifts in his sleep, and his eyelids heavily lift. He turns his head slowly, figuring out where he is, and then the corners of his mouth quirk up as he finds her there. “Is it morning?” he whispers, his voice thick and husky.

“No, but something woke me and I was just lying here thinking,” she replies, and finds that her hands is wandering down further, into the patch of warmth just below the elastic of his pajama bottoms.

“Mmm,” he murmurs, his hips shifting towards her in agreement with her movements. “What’re you thinking about?”

“A lot of things,” she says, stroking him firmly. He moans, and the depth of it makes her quiver, makes nerve endings spark to life across her body. She wants him so badly, already, that she’s rubbing her thighs together, trying to relieve some of the pressure that’s building as her whole body seems to cry out for his touch, his heat, his love.

“You said you loved me, last night,” she whispers, draping one leg over his. They have worked together to ease his pants down, and his shaft is pulsing with need against his belly as her hand leaves him. He ignores it and instead turns to face her, winding his legs with hers, slipping a couple of fingers into her panties to circle her clit with maddening tenderness.

“I meant it,” he says, and kisses her long and deep.

She is able to wiggle out of her bottoms and pull him closer using her hips and leg until they are flush against each other – hands grabbing and groping and caressing, mouths sucking and tasting and nibbling – the only sounds in the room the occasional quiet creak of the bed springs, or the whimpers she can’t contain as he drives her mad with desire.

And finally, he’s opening her with his fingers and sliding in, his mouth still on hers; and she is so close, already so close; she pulls against him tightly, wanting more, wanting all of him.

His eyes are on her face, his mouth open as he huffs his pleasured sounds. He rests his forehead against her chin as their bodies move together, apart, together, apart; and the bed creaks and the sheets swish and she whines his name and claws his back and grabs his hair, taking his adoration, getting it all.

When she comes, she is holding him so tightly that she might otherwise be embarrassed, but she isn’t with Mulder – never, with Mulder – and she shudders and sobs against him. He follows right after her, pumping into her fiercely and holding her hips against his, grunting her name breathlessly; afterwards, he presses a kiss to her lips, another to the tip of her nose, and buries his face in her neck.

The stars are twinkling brightly, and the world is at rest; she kisses Mulder’s damp temple, breathes in his salty nighttime scent, and knows without doubt that she loves him, too.

“I didn’t say it last night,” she says with a shaky voice, catching her breath, “but I…”

“You don’t have to say it, Scully,” he mumbles, leaving sloppy kisses across her collarbone.

But she wants to, and she will; she’s ready now. She tells him dreamily as he nuzzles her neck, his fingertips painting shapes over her tailbone, her hips, her thighs. Mulder, in his fashion, hears her without interruption, without reply, without question. Settling in against him, her flesh melting against his own, she thinks she can actually feel dawn on its way, the earth turning ever so slightly as their dark little corner of the world draws closer and closer to sunlight.


End file.
